Tag: werecat

Culture

Werecats, Part V: The Wampus Cat

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Meredith Hemphill

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Encyclopaedia Felidae now has a Patreon! Go to www.patreon.com/EncyclopaediaFelidae if you want to help support this content!

At long last, we have reached the end of our series on werecats. We are rounding out the line-up with werepumas, which really only take one form: the wampus cat. It might be a bit of a stretch the call wampus cats a type of werecat, but they do have many of the common characteristics. Plus, these creatures come from my own neck of the woods, so I didn’t want to leave them out. I now present to you the (sort-of) werecat of the American south.

What is a Wampus Cat?

Wampus: An imaginary creature who lives in the deep Cape Fear River swamps.

Paul Green’s Wordbook: An Alphabet of Reminiscence, 1990
Map of Appalachian Mountains
Appalachian Mountains – Appalachian Regional Commission via Wikimedia Commons

Descriptions of the wampus cat vary depending upon the location, and it has a pretty large home range. Wampus cat folklore is concentrated throughout the southern Appalachian Mountains, from Virginia to Mississippi (2, 7). The stories even crop up to the west in Missouri and Arkansas (8). Wampus cats are usually said to be part-human, part-cougar (1-3, 5, 7) but are sometimes a canine-feline hybrid instead (2, 8). Others describe them as huge, black panthers with demonic, glowing eyes (5). Typical traits include walking on two legs instead of four, luminescent yellow eyes, and a bone-chilling howl or scream (1, 2, 8).

How dangerous wampus cats are depends upon who you ask, as well. In some legends, the wampus cat can be destructive but doesn’t pose a danger to human lives. She may disturb or damage items left outside and kill or steal livestock, and she makes scary noises in the woods at night (6). Sometimes the wampus cat is said to drive people insane (8) or to portend death with its haunting cries (7).

There are those who swear wampus cats are much more dangerous than that, however, and will absolutely attack humans with intent to kill (1, 5). Yet according to a Cherokee version of the legend, the wampus cat is actually a protector of the land and its people (2, 8). The tale of the wampus cat may have originated with the Cherokee (7), although it’s hard to say for sure because the provenance of the lore has become quite muddied.

Murky Origins

Cherokee Curse

This seems to be the most common origin story for the wampus cat. It’s also the one that I remember reading in a book of spooky stories as a teenager. It begins with a beautiful Cherokee woman who wants to know what the men get up to on their hunts, which women are forbidden from participating in (1-3, 6, 7). In some versions of the tale, she is jealous, believing that her husband may be engaging in infidelity while he’s away from her (1). In others she wants to learn the magic rites that the men perform on these trips (6).

Whatever her reasons, she covered herself in a puma skin as a disguise and snuck after the men the next time they went hunting (1-3, 6, 7). They caught her spying on them, and the shaman put a curse on her as punishment (1-3, 6, 7). The woman and the cougar pelt became one, and she was turned into a half-human, half-cougar, doomed to wander the forests forever away from human companionship (1-3, 6, 7).

Although this story is about the Cherokee, it probably was not their story (6). In fact, the Cherokee have a different myth about the cat creature, which I will get to next. It’s thought that the first stories of the wampus cat–under a different name–were shared among Native Americans, especially the Cherokee, and later relayed to white settlers (2). Then, perhaps because of cultural differences or just the Telephone Game that happens with folklore, the European newcomers began to tell the story differently.

Cherokee Hero

The Cherokee legend also casts a woman in the starring role, but in a much different light. Once upon a time, a Cherokee village was under siege by a demon: Ew’ah, the Spirit of Madness (2, 8). Ew’ah ate dreams and could drive people insane with a single glance (8). The Cherokee’s strongest warrior, Standing Bear (or sometimes Great Fellow), was chosen to go out and kill the demon (8). When he finally returned weeks later, he was completely insane (2, 8).

Close-up of mountain lion
Photo by Jake Heckey from Pixabay

Standing Bear’s wife, Running Deer, was heartbroken–and determined to get revenge (8). The shamans gave Running Deer a wild cat mask and a magical black paste that would hide her scent and her body (8). They told her that she must surprise the demon, or she would fare no better than her husband (8).

So Running Deer tracked Ew’ah through the forest and managed to sneak up behind it as it was drinking from a spring (8). Running Deer sprang upon Ew’ah, taking it by surprise just as she’d planned (2, 8). The spirit of the mountain cat in the mask banished the demon, and Running Deer ran home without looking back (8). The shamans and warchiefs named Running Deer “Spirit-Talker” and “Home-Protector” in honor of her courageous act (8). They say that she is still protecting her home now in the form of the wampus cat (2, 8).

Witchy Werecat

On the flip side, there is a common wampus cat tale that has European colonists written all over it. Where there are women and cats, there must be witches, right? The story claims that an Appalachian village was being terrorized by a spate of mysterious livestock thefts (3). They believed a witch was the culprit, and they had a particular woman in mind (3). Some of the townspeople followed her from her home to a farm late one night (3).

They watched as she transformed into a house cat and sneaked into the farmhouse (3). She put a sleeping spell on the family, slunk back outside, and entered the barn (3). There, she began to transform back into a human (3). The townspeople interrupted her, however, preventing her from finishing the spell (1, 3). She was able to escape capture, but was stuck halfway between a human and a cat thereafter (1, 3).

The Government Did It

This one is my favorite because it’s just so wild. There is an urban legend version of the wampus cat specific to Alabama which has it that wampus cats were created by a secret government program (2). The story goes that this World War II-era program aimed to create a fast, courageous animal that could be used as messengers in warzones (2). In a remote place in Alabama, government scientists made a creature that was part mountain lion, part gray wolf (2). How that was allegedly accomplished in the 1940s when it wouldn’t even be possible today, is anyone’s guess. According to legend, some of these hypothetical animals escaped the facility and established themselves in the environment (2). As someone with a degree in genetics, I firmly assert that this make no sense. But what a story!

Wampus Cats in Media

Statue of wampus cat
Conway High School’s six-legged wampus cat mascot – Photo by Lord Belbury via Wikimedia Commons

Wampus cats are not an especially common supernatural creature in popular culture, but that doesn’t mean they never rear their furry heads. Cormac McCarthy incorporated them in his debut novel, The Orchard Keeper (7). McCarthy’s character Uncle Arthur is plagued by dreams of wampus cats which he fears will enter his bedchamber and “suck his meager breath” (7).

In The Island of Dr. Moreau, H. G. Wells paints a truly horrifying picture of the depravity of humankind in the service of science. Wells uses an unusual word for the wampus cat, “virago,” in a scene with Dr. Moreau’s surgically-built puma woman (7). The narrator notes dispassionately that the creature’s shrieks under the torture of Dr. Moreau’s knife sound “almost exactly like that of an angry virago” (7). The puma woman immediately escapes and succeeds at exacting her revenge on her tormentor, although she loses her life as well (7).

  • J. K. Rowling made Wampus Cat one of the houses in Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
  • There was a string ensemble in the late 1930s called The Wampus Cats.
  • Strangeways Brewing makes a Wampus Cat Triple IPA.
  • Great American Craft Spirits makes a Wampus Cat Single Malt Whiskey.
  • Cry of the Wampus Cat by Joel Eden is a crime thriller that uses the Cherokee curse wampus cat mythology and pits two detectives against a series of murders that may have been committed by a wampus cat.
  • Several schools use the wampus cat as their mascot, including Conway High School, which depicts is as a blue-and-white mountain lion with six legs. Your guess is as good as mine.

Is the Wampus Cat Just a Cat?

With all those possible origin stories for the wampus cat, there is another we have yet to examine. Is the wampus cat just a case of mistaken identity? Most of the descriptions sound a lot like a real puma, except sometimes on two legs instead of four, which cats can’t do for very long. Puma eyes can glow at night, a phenomenon known as eyeshine. It is caused by the reflective layer at the back of their eyes which helps felines see in low light. As for the unearthly wails of the wampus cat? If you’ve never heard a mountain lion scream, I’ve included a video below. The sound is often compared to a woman screaming in fear or pain.

There are two problems with this hypothesis, however. The first is that the legend of the wampus cat likely began with the local Native Americans. They shared the forests with cougars and would have known very well what they look and sound like. Widespread misidentification seems highly improbable. The second is that cougars have been extinct in the east (except Florida) for almost 100 years. At least, that’s the official line.

There’s no one, simple answer to the first quandary, but there might be to the second. Although Fish and Wildlife Services maintain that the Eastern Cougar is extinct, people sure seem to see a lot of them for that to be the case (5). They also continue to see wampus cats and to blame them for attacking livestock (2). If people don’t expect to see pumas it might be easier to conflate the two.

In 2017, Tennessee confirmed 10 mountain lion sightings after none in the last hundred years (5). As far as I know, that’s the closest the Eastern Cougar has come to official de-extinction. Why aren’t wildlife officials interested in cougar sightings? A North Carolina fish and game official, who wished to remain anonymous, told journalist Mike Conley that wildlife officials might be afraid admitting the Eastern Cougar is back in town could lead to hunters flocking to bag the cats (5). Not many people seem interested in taking home wampus cat trophies, however. Perhaps the wampus cat is a protector of the forest after all.

Trail cam footage of female mountain lion featuring “screaming” vocalizations and eyeshine

Works Cited

  1. Bahr, J., Taylor, T., Coleman, L., Moran, M., and Sceurman, M. (2007). Weird Virginia: Your travel guide to Virginia’s local legends and best kept secrets. Sterling Publishing Company: New York.
  2. Conley, M. (2013, August 1). Mike Conley’s tales of the weird: legend of the wampus cat. The McDowell News. https://mcdowellnews.com/opinion/mike-conley-s-tales-of-the-weird-legend-of-the/article_3891ddce-f53e-5659-8f26-e4274c9ebe91.html
  3. Farley, J. T. K. (2017, March 31). Have you ever heard of Appalachia’s wampus cat legend? Appalachian Magazine. http://appalachianmagazine.com/2017/03/31/have-you-ever-heard-of-appalachias-wampus-cat-legend/
  4. Green, P. (1990). Wampus. In R. H. Wynn (ed.), Paul Green’s wordbook: An alphabet of reminiscence (pp. 1183). Appalachian State University: Boone, NC.
  5. McDowell, I. (2017, July 26). Wampus cats, panthers, and cougars, oh my! Yes! Weekly. https://www.yesweekly.com/news/wampus-cats-panthers-and-cougars-oh-my/article_49f88d47-98a5-57f9-9459-a28a0bfc139c.html
  6. North Carolina Ghosts. (n.d.). The wampus cat. https://northcarolinaghosts.com/mountains/wampus-cat/
  7. Place, E. (2017, June 27). Big cats of the Southeast (part 3): The wampus cat and other anthropomorphic depictions. The History Bandits. https://thehistorybandits.com/2017/06/27/big-cats-of-the-southeast-part-3-the-wampus-cat-and-other-anthropomorphic-depictions/
  8. Tabler, D. (2017, October 13). The story of the wampus cat. Appalachian History. https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2017/10/story-of-wampus-cat.html

Published April 11th, 2021

Updated May 12th, 2023

Culture

Werecats, Part IV: The Ferocious Wereleopard

mehshadoweye

Meredith Hemphill

mehshadoweye

Encyclopaedia Felidae now has a Patreon! Go to www.patreon.com/EncyclopaediaFelidae if you want to help support this content!

Woman in leopard-print onesie
Photo by Love2401 from Pixabay

There are many parts of the world where more than one species of large cat is obliged to coexist, and the same is true for werecats. Wereleopards are part of folk beliefs in parts of Africa and Asia, where they share their territory with other fearsome werecats. However, the wereleopards are not diminished by having to share. In fact, this is easily the wildest werecat article I’ve written yet, because in the 1940s, wereleopards were blamed for over 200 real-life murders in Nigeria (1, 7). Get ready for cat blogging to take a detour into true crime.

Wereleopards in India

A wereleopard outpost exists in the land of weretigers. In an area on the India-Burma border known as the Naga Hills, there is a tradition of overlapping wereleopard and weretiger lore. Wereleopards seem to be primarily an African phenomenon, so this is sort of a cultural outlier. But wherever there are leopards, there might be wereleopards.

The Angami and Sema people hold that there are no physical transformations, but that wereleopards project their souls into the body of a wild leopard (5). The human and leopard then become closely associated with each other (5). The leopard’s body actually changes. Such leopards can be recognized because they have five toes on each paw (5). Felines normally have five toes on their forepaws and four on their hind paws. J.H. Hutton, who wrote about the werecat beliefs of the Naga people, observed the body of such a leopard (5). Then again, as you may recall from my article on Hemingway cats, extra toes/polydactyly is a common, benign mutation in felines.

There are several ways the Naga peoples believe someone can become a wereleopard. The Angami say there is a spring of either blood or blood-red water, drinking from which turns a person into a wereleopard or weretiger (5). The Sema think one becomes a wereleopard through possession by spirits, often involuntarily (5). However, this possession is contagious, so if somebody wanted to be a wereleopard, they could do it by spending all their time with a known wereleopard for at least two months (5). The would-be wereleopard must sleep in the existing wereleopard’s bed, eat from the same dish, and never leave their side (5).

According to some, an easier method is to have a wereleopard feed them pieces of chicken with ginger–first six, then five, and then three pieces on crossed plantain leaves (5). It’s considered dangerous to finish food or drink that a wereleopard has left behind, as the condition might accidentally be acquired that way (5). To me, that seems like the easiest way to become a wereleopard if you wanted to. Just make a habit of polishing off everyone’s leftovers and hope for the best. Not very sanitary, but also very low-effort.

The soul usually enters the leopard at night during sleep and returns in the morning, but it may remain in the leopard for several days at a time (5). While the human soul is out doing leopard things, the human body continues to conduct business as usual, but in a sort of zombie-like state (5). As usual, any injuries sustained by the leopard body are reflected by the human one (5). They appear a few days later, typically in the form of boils or similar marks in the place where the leopard was injured (5). Death to the leopard body causes death to the human (5). Curiously, death is not immediate, but rather only occurs once the wereleopard finds out that their leopard has been killed (5).

Leopard
Photo by MIGUEL PEREZ from Pixabay

The sentiments about wereleopards vary. It seems that in these cultures, people aren’t too fussed about someone being a wereleopard as long as they don’t cause too much trouble. Friends and family may even go to great effort to protect a wereleopard’s leopard body (5). The killing of a lot of livestock, or of people, by a suspected wereleopard could lead to punitive action, however (5).

Wereleopards in Africa

Wereleopards in Africa may be obliged to share their turf with werelions, and like werelions they sometimes represent leadership and authority (2, 3). Some Egyptian pharaohs took the leopard as their personal symbol (2). However, wereleopards can be at least as dangerous as regular leopards. Importantly, wereleopards are capable of human thoughts and motivations. They may act with malicious intent to get revenge on their enemies (4).

Wereleopards do have their weaknesses, of course. As seems to universally be the case, a wereleopard’s human body is subject to the injuries of its leopard form, just like in the lore of the Naga Hills. Sometimes this is said to manifest as respiratory illness if the leopard was chased by something for a long time (3). Wounds to the leopard may appear as sores (3) or as identical wounds on the human body (4, 5, 7).

How to Become a Wereleopard

In a Bantu legend, a man became a wereleopard by first asking his wife to cook a ridiculous quantity of stiff manioc porridge. He then took the porridge into the forest and shaped it into a duplicate of himself. In the market, he bought a fetish which had the power to turn a person into a wereleopard. He went to a crossroads in the forest and beat his body with a pestle until he metamorphosed into a leopard. His porridge body then got up, went home, and replaced him without anyone noticing the difference. (6)

It doesn’t always have to be quite so complicated. Alternatively, one could just drink a potion made of human organs (8). Or one could be killed and eaten by a leopard, which allows the human soul to travel into the leopard and turn the cat into a wereleopard (10). I imagine not many people pick that option on purpose.

Wereleopards were sometimes believed to be the descendants of a leopard deity that produced shapeshifting children with a human partner (8). In such a case, the ability could simply be inherited.

Identifying a Wereleopard

People who are especially fast runners, strong fighters, agile jumpers, or skilled dancers or moved with a feline gait were said to be possible wereleopards (3, 9). Upon autopsy, black spots on one or both lungs were a sure sign (3). If both lungs were marked, the person had two leopards (3). The lungs can also become discolored because of disease, but there is one sign I guarantee indicates, if not a wereleopard, at least something unusual. Wereleopards in human form sometimes had a second mouth on the back of their head (11)!

Some stories claimed that the leopard form could also be distinguished. It might, for instance, have ten tails, which would certainly stand out (11). Wereleopards move in groups, but leopards are primarily solitary, so this can distinguish them as well (3). In the absence of nine extra tails, that is.

The Leopard Murders

Close-up of leopard
Photo by Tobias Heine from Pixabay

Wereleopards were real and present for the cultures that believed in them for centuries untold. When European countries carved Africa up into colonies, the colonizers disregarded wereleopards along with all other native beliefs. In 1940s Nigeria, however, the British administration had to face wereleopards head-on, whether they were willing to believe in them or not. Between 1943 and 1948, over 200 people were killed and mutilated in a bizarre and devastating crime wave for which 77 people hanged (7). These were the Leopard Murders, and to this day no one is 100% sure what really happened.

Nothing to See Here

The leopard murders took place in two districts of British Nigeria, Abak and Opobo. The native culture lacked central authority (7). Instead, secret societies were a primary governing force (7). These secret societies performed religious, administrative, judicial, and policing functions (7). British authority in the area was fairly hands-off before the murders, with a small police presence (7).

The timeline begins in 1943, although it’s possible that earlier deaths went unnoticed. Even the first leopard murders were not remarked upon. Police and medical examiners concluded that the victims had all been killed by wild animals (7). Leopard prints, scat, and hair were sometimes find at the scene (7). However, a pattern was forming. Here’s where we talk about corpses, so skip the next paragraph if you don’t want to know.

Most of the victims were killed at dusk along bush paths (7). The bodies usually had bruises on the back of the head, the head and face torn off, and one arm skinned, severed, and thrown a few feet from the body (7). Deep, irregular scratches marred the chest and shoulders (7). Sometimes the heart, lungs, and/or other internal organs were missing (7).

In March 1945, the new District Officer for Abak, F.R. Kay, became suspicious (7). The consistency and precision of the mutilations didn’t seem likely for a wild animal to Kay (7). He also thought it improbable that a leopard would excise chest organs but leave the abdomen and large muscle tissue untouched (7). Predators tend to go for the abdominal organs first, as they’re easy to access and highly nutritious. But that wasn’t all that bothered him. Some of the “animal attack” victims had had clothing removed and money stolen from their wallets (7). Once, the purported leopard wrapped its victim’s head in her loincloth (7).

On the Tail of a Murder Cult

Kay teamed up with the District Officer of Opobo, J.G.C. Allen, to investigate (7). They soon became convinced that the accumulating deaths were the doing of a murder cult (7). They suspected a new secret society called Ekpe Owo, meaning “leopard men,” which had putatively evolved from the policing secret society Ekpe (7). The police were told that some members of Ekpe had obtained a medicine that turned them into wereleopards (7). After that, the new Ekpe Owo began working as a society of murderers-for-hire, violently solving disputes among the natives that the British courts didn’t understand or couldn’t handle (7).

Kay and Allen raised quite a stir. A large police force was sent in to root out the murderous leopard society that Kay and Allen were certain was to blame (7). The native locals were put upon to feed and take care of the police presence (7). Despite the sometimes oppressive efforts of the police, and plenty of convictions, the killings continued. The news media in Europe began to pick up on the salacious case, and the police felt the pressure to make progress (7). Their solution was to send an even larger force, with the express intention of annoying the locals so much that they would tell the police everything they knew just to make them go away (7).

The new leopard force operated much as the previous one, and killings continued much as before, too (7). Public hangings of the convicted were instituted as a deterrent and a curfew was put in place, as most of the murders were perpetrated in the evening (7). The locals did not much appreciate any of the policework (7). So far, it had apparently saved no lives and caused them a great deal of difficulty. Things only got worse when the first European was killed, a police officer no less, in January of 1947 (7). The police responded by making the entire Idiong secret society illegal because the individual suspects belonged to it (7). Hundreds of Idiong shrines were destroyed (7).

Leopard laying on fallen tree
Photo by ejakob from Pixabay

Who You Gonna McCall?

In August of 1947, J.A.G. McCall became the new District Officer over both Opobo and Abak (7). He was skeptical of the murder cult theory. He believed that normal leopards were behind most, if not all, of the killings (1, 7). McCall also had things to say about the behavior of the police. He denounced the bullying tactics the police had been using (7). He also called the police out on their poor evidence-gathering technique (1, 7). In some cases, police never even visited the crime scene (1, 7)!

McCall was particularly bothered by the fact that there had been no leopard murders north of the Qua Ibo river in villages of the same culture (1). There was a bridge across the river, so it would have been no problem for a human perpetrator, or a real wereleopard, for that matter, to cross and commit murder (1). But such a barrier is much more difficult for animals to cross. He also noted that leopard murders were more numerous where the natural prey of leopards had been overhunted and was in short supply (1).

McCall undertook a campaign of leopard trapping and killing in attempt to rid the area of the alleged man-eaters (1, 7). While most of the police didn’t like McCall straying from the party line, the locals had more mixed feelings (1, 7). Some villagers were arrested for springing the leopard traps or otherwise sabotaging the hunt (7). There were stories of people who died because their leopard forms were killed in the hunt (7). On the other hand, when McCall was eventually sent to another post, nine chiefs and representatives of Ikot Akan, Opobo, sent a letter asking for him to be restored to his post in Opobo (1).

37 leopards were killed over the course of the campaign (7). McCall believed that he succeeded in killing at least a few leopards that had been responsible for the slew of deaths. One of his suspected man-eaters was a large, elderly male that was trapped and killed the night after two of the ‘leopard murders’ (1). The leopard had two broken fangs and a mutilated paw that was missing a pad from a long-ago injury (1). Old age and injury have occasionally caused big cats to switch to human prey because humans are soft to chew and easy to catch. The man-eaters of Tsavo is a famous case of that type.

The killing of 37 leopards is a tragedy, but depending upon who you ask it may have been the right thing to do. Beyond that, McCall also called into question the previous convictions and succeeded in getting the sentences of 16 men commuted from execution to life in prison, at least until their cases could be reexamined (1, 7). Whether those cases were reconsidered or not wasn’t mentioned.

By May, 1948, things had returned almost to normal (7). 77 people and 37 leopards had been executed (1, 7). A variety of other solutions had been thrown at the insane situation as well. Which, if any of them, actually brought about a resolution? One theory holds that the complexity of the problem was always underestimated. Some of the murders were Ekpe Owo assassinations, some were acts of violence between citizens disguised as leopard or Ekpe Owo killings, and some were leopard depredation (7). Maybe isn’t that complicated, and only one or two groups were at play but the volatile human environment preventing the mystery being solved. Unfortunately, we won’t solve it now, but that doesn’t mean we should stop thinking about it. There’s probably a lot to be learned from the leopard murders.

The Man Who Stole a Leopard by Duran Duran ~ TW: domestic abuse, self-harm, suicide

Works Cited

  1. Bellers, V. (n.d.). The leopard murders of Opobo. In What Mr. Sanders really did, or A speck in the ocean of time (chapter nineteen). Retrieved from https://www.britishempire.co.uk/article/sanders/sanderschapter19.htm
  2. Curran, B. and Daniels, I. (2009). Werewolves: A field guide to shapeshifters, lycanthropes, and man-beasts. Franklin Lakes, NJ: The Career Press.
  3. Douglas, M. (2013). Witcraft confessions and accusations. Abingdon, OX: Taylor & Francis.
  4. Hubbard, J.W. (1931). The Isoko country, southern Nigeria. The Geographical Journal, 77(2), 110-120. https://doi.org/10.2307/1784387
  5. Hutton, J.H. (1920). Leopard-men in the Naga Hills. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 50, 41-51. https://doi.org/10.2307/2843373
  6. Knappert, J. (Ed). (1977). Bantu myths and other tales. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
  7. Nwaka, G.I. (1986). The ‘leopard’ killings of southern Annang, Nigeria, 1943-48. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 56(4), 417-440. https://doi.org/10.2307/1159998
  8. Swancer, B. (2016, November 24). Beyond werewolves: Strange were-beasts of the world. Mysterious Universe. https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2016/11/beyond-werewolves-strange-were-beasts-of-the-world/
  9. Talbot, P.A. (1923). Life in southern Nigeria: The magic, beliefs, and customs of the Ibibio tribe. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd.
  10. Werner, A. (1929). Review, untitled [Review of the book An English-Tswa Dictionary]. Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London 5(2), 436-438. https://www.jstor.org/stable/607728
  11. Werner, A. (1933). The Amazimu. In Myths and legends of the Bantu (chapter seven). Abingdon, OX: Taylor and Francis. Retrieved from https://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/mlb/mlb14.htm

Published January 31th, 2021

Updated June 12th, 2023

Culture

Werecats, Part II: The Regal Werelion

mehshadoweye

Meredith Hemphill

mehshadoweye

Encyclopaedia Felidae now has a Patreon! Go to www.patreon.com/EncyclopaediaFelidae if you want to help support this content!

Werelion statue
5000-year-old lion-woman statue – Image by Welcome to all and thank you for your visit ! ツ from Pixabay

This week we resume our tour of werecats by traveling to Africa, home of the werelion. There, in the cradle of humanity, cats big and small are exquisite predators. Sometimes the big cats take human prey, and this must only have been more so the case in the early days of human history. Is it any wonder, then, that some African folktales have fused two of the most fearsome beasts they knew: humans and lions?

On the one hand, the folklore of Bantu African cultures explains that sovereigns are transformed into lions after death [1, 2]. This suggests a kinship with lions. However Knappert points out that is also tells us lions commanded the respect and fear of those that lived alongside them, just like kings do of their subjects [1]. A lion that used to be a king in a former life is a sort of spiritual werelion, but there are stories of werelions with real transformative powers, and they tend to have less ambiguous personalities.

To this werelion, I do thee wed…

Sometimes, the belief is that humans use magic to take the form of a lion for various nefarious purposes [2, 3]. However, it can be the other way around [3]. In one story, a lion took the shape of a man, moved into a village, and married a human woman [3]. After a while they had a child [3]. So far, so good, if a little strange. Then the werelion suggested the family go visit his parents [3]. Yikes! None the wiser, his wife agreed, and the little family set off, accompanied by the wife’s brother [3].

As the sun began to set, they made camp, and the werelion built a protective shelter, or kraal, of thorn bushes before announcing his intention to fish and leaving. The brother was not impressed with his brother-in-law’s kraal and strengthened it himself. As you will surely be shocked to learn, the werelion brought his family to attack that night, but the lions couldn’t breach the kraal. The werelion’s family shamed him for his failure, and they left. [3]

Image by Andrea Bohl from Pixabay

The werelion came back in the morning with fish and plenty of excuses, but the brother was becoming suspicious. When the werelion left to fish again, the brother went on a walk to think. He found a gnome (akachekulu) who confirmed his suspicions and, in return for some housecleaning, taught the brother how to make a magic drum that would enable him to fly when he played it. The brother hid his sister and the baby inside the drum and began to play. It worked, but the noise attracted the werelion. Fortunately, it also compelled the werelion to dance, and the brother was able to fly everyone home to the village, where the werelion dared not try to hurt them. [3]

Werelion defeated by smart kid with feathers

Humans are human everywhere, so many elements of folklore are cross-cultural. The phenomenon of were-beasts is one example, but this story has lots: the rule of three (twice), rags to riches, advice from magical objects. It also reminds me a little of the German fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin, but this time the mother is not the one who breaks the pact.

The story begins during a severe famine, with a pregnant woman searching for something to eat in the wilderness. She finds a lion that has just killed an antelope and offers to trade her child for its kill. The lion agrees. [1] Perhaps it’s a gap in my understanding as a cultural outsider, but it seems as though it is never clear why, exactly, the lion would want the woman’s unborn child. If he wants to eat it, why not just keep the antelope, or kill the woman and have all of the above? To me, not knowing what he has in mind is actually more disturbing.

But perhaps the lion’s intentions are irrelevant. Cases of parents bartering their children for food were not unheard of [1]. I have no doubt that such a thing is not isolated in space or time, either. Starvation is a horrible thing that can make people do horrible things just to survive. The werelion may simply be a convenient stand-in for the sort of person who would be happy to buy a child.

35,000 – 40,000-year-old lion man sculpture from German cave – Wikimedia Commons

Well, the woman gave birth to a son and named him Mutipi. Mutipi grew two feathers on top of his head, but he was the only one that could see them. Eventually, the lion decided the time had come, so he changed into a man and came to the house to collect Mutipi. But Mutipi took out his feathers and asked them what to do. They told him that this was Mr. Lion come to take him away, and that he must change himself into a mouse so that when his mother called him in for dinner, he would not be recognized. And it worked. [1]

The werelion tried twice more, but each time Mutipi’s feathers told him how to escape capture using tricks or magic. Finally, the werelion took Mutipi’s mother instead, and Mutipi fled to another country. There, he became a favored messenger for the king. The courtiers grew envious and tried thrice to kill Mutipi, but again, his feathers told him how to avoid assassination. [1]

When drought and famine killed everyone in the country but Mutipi, for only he had magic, all-knowing feathers, the feathers told him to make a whip of lion-skin that would bring whoever he whips with it back to life. He chose not to resurrect his murderous enemies. He did resurrect the princess, married her, and became king himself. I am unclear on what happened to the last king. He just isn’t mentioned in the closing action of the story. Make of that what you will. [1]

Werelions, where are they now?

If you read the magnum opus that was my article on weretigers, you might be either disappointed or relieved that this installment in the series is so much shorter. Personally, I’m a little bit of both. I struggled to find reliable resources on this topic. Most sources just seemed to be repeating each other, and I wanted to provide better information than that. The result is a higher-quality but rather short article. If you do want to get more werelions in your life, here are some examples of werelions in modern media. We see werewolves quite frequently, especially in paranormal content in the United States, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen or read anything with a werelion. Let’s see what’s out there, why don’t we?

Books

  • Beast by Krishna Udayasankar – a werelion is wreaking havoc in Mumbai, and an unsuspecting cop is on its trail
  • Daughter of Lions by Catherine Banks – daughter of the leader of a werelion pride experiences teen angst
  • Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews – magic is dying and Atlanta is overrun with monsters, plus shapeshifters
  • And a truly shocking number of erotic novels…

Games

  • Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn feature a people called the Laguz, one tribe of which can transform into big wildcats, including lions.
  • Dungeons and Dragons has an official race of lion-like people called Leonin.
  • World of Warcraft druids can take lion or panther forms.

Works Cited

  1. Knappert, J. (1977). Mutipi and the werelion (Ronga). In Bantu Myths and Other Tales (pp. 54- 58). E.J. Brill.
  2. Gouldsbury, C. and Sheane, H. (1911). The great plateau of northern Rhodesia: Being some impressions of the Tanganyika plateau (pp. 200). Edward Arnold. PDF
  3. Werner, A. (1933). Chapter XIII: Of werewolves, halfmen, gnomes, goblins, and other monsters. In Myths and legends of the Bantu. George G. Harrap and Co., Ltd. Accessed at https://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/mlb/mlb15.htm

Published November 22, 2020

Culture

Werecats, Part I: The Mystic Weretiger

mehshadoweye

Meredith Hemphill

mehshadoweye

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Man with painted tiger stripes
Photo by Charles Crawshaw World Peace in 2020 from Pexels

Werelions, weretigers, werejaguars, oh my! That was my where my brain was at about thirty seconds into my research on ailuranthropy, or the phenomenon of humans transforming into big cats (from the Greek ailouros “cat” and anthropos “human”). I hadn’t intended for this to be a series, but I quickly realized that werecats were a much larger topic than I had expected. This means I get to draw the Halloween blogs out longer, so I can’t complain. We will begin the series with the cat people that stalk human prey in the folktales of Asia: the weretigers.

Weretigers are the most frequently occurring kind of were-creature in the folklore of tropical Asia (1, 2). Tales about these creatures can be found in the mythology of China, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia, just to name a few. Humans have lived alongside tigers in this part of the world forever, really, although the decline of tigers has tragically made that less the case. In Europe, the most fearsome natural predator was the wolf, giving rise to stories of humans becoming wolves. There was no more appropriate metaphor for the animal within. Where the tiger is the king of the jungle, however, humans become cats.

Under Their Skin

The stories about weretigers are almost as different as the people and places where they are told. In only some of them are people bodily transformed into tigers. Often, the transformation takes place once the weretiger puts on a tiger skin with or without an accompanying incantation (3, 4). The European werewolf is frequently made the same way. There are some stories where people became weretigers accidentally after slipping into a tiger skin (4). One story tells of a Chinese monk who put on a tiger skin to play a practical joke, only to become a tiger and remain so for a year (4).

Alternatively, a person may become a weretiger by burning incense, reciting an incantation, and throwing his clothes off (5, 6). By shedding their clothes, they are shedding their personhood, in a sense, and once naked they transform into a tiger (5, 6). If someone steals the clothes, the weretiger will not be able to turn back into a human (6).

White tiger on grass
Photo by Anthony from Pexels

My personal favorite tactic, however, involves circling an anthill seven times clockwise while repeating a secret charm (7). This lacks the obvious symbolism of stripping off one’s humanity but is infinitely more bizarre. To turn back, simply do the opposite: walk around the anthill counterclockwise seven times while repeating the charm (7). Does this mean weretigers can talk? Does it have to be the same anthill? I have no idea, but I love it.

Some transformation rituals require one or more accomplices. In one, a practitioner recites particular spells, or mantras, over a measure of water (1). An assistant then sprinkles the water over the weretiger to effect the transformation (1). To change them back, the assistant sprinkles the water over them again (1). In some versions of the throw-off-the-clothes ritual, the only way to become human again is for someone to hurl the weretiger’s clothes at them while they are in tiger form (1). If a weretiger’s accomplice is unable or unwilling to help for whatever reason, they will be stuck as a tiger, presumably for the rest of their life (5).

Tiger Spirits

In some beliefs, a person becomes a weretiger when they are possessed by a spirit. The Lisu people of Laos believe that weretigers can possess people and may then possess their family members in turn (8). They also believe that those who are thus possessed will put “the essence of the weretiger” into a valuable object and leave it lying on a path (8). Whoever picks the object up will be possessed, too (8). I can only imagine the chain reactions of weretiger possession that ensue from a single Weretiger Zero.

On the other hand, there is a folk belief in Malaysia that certain families are already tigrine by birth (9). After death, they become tigers that somewhat resemble their human selves and remember their human lives (9). These tigers visit their humans relatives during festivals or times of great turmoil and can sometimes be called upon for help (9). When a human member of the family is about to die, at least one of their tiger relatives will come to hold vigil outside the house, waiting (9). A few days after death, their grave will be found opened, and a representative tiger will appear in the nearby forest (9). The journal article describing this belief was written in 1922 (9), so it is possible that the lore has died out by now. Unless, of course, it’s not just a myth.

Dreamtime Weretiger

Tiger in snow
Image by Marcel Langthim from Pixabay

Interestingly, there is a major type of weretiger that does not involve any metamorphosis at all. These weretigers leave their human bodies in their sleep to become tigers. In the lore of certain indigenous peoples of India and south Asia, some individuals naturally have the ability to be this kind of weretiger (1, 2). When these weretigers dream, a part of their soul travels into the jungle and joins with the soul of a live tiger (1, 2). The weretiger then acts out the desires of the sleeping human, which can sometimes result in the property destruction, injury, or death of the weretiger’s enemies (1, 2).

The weretiger and their tiger have a close relationship. They always migrates into the same tiger, night after night, for their entire life (1, 2). If the tiger is wounded or killed while bonded with the weretiger’s soul, the human body suffers the same fate (1, 2).

The Khasis of northeastern India ascribe to a variation of the dreaming weretiger belief. Khasis people believe that humans are divided into the body, the soul, and the rngiew (10, 11). The rngiew is a sort of essential, divine essence integral to each person (10). When the weretigers sleep, their rngiew leave their bodies and transform into tigers in the spirit world (10, 11). However, the spirit world and the physical one are not entirely separate, and the weretigers are able to interact with the material plane as tigers (10, 11). People either inherit the ability to be a weretiger or are chosen to receive the gift by a deity (10).

The Good, the Bad, and the Stripey

I have read a lot of old werewolf stories because that’s the kind of thing I do for fun. I can’t think of a single one where the werewolf was presented as anything other than a force for evil. Modern representations are much more varied, of course, but folklore decidedly depicts werewolves as bad dogs. Weretigers, however, are painted in many different lights.

Tiger in jungle
Image by Capri23auto from Pixabay

Sometimes, weretigers engender terror. They are thought to kill people and livestock (1, 2, 4). But other times they are protectors (9, 10, 11, 12). The Khasis weretigers have a sacred duty to protect their communities from harm, including other weretigers (11). There are Chinese myths about weretigers who are the instruments of heaven, meting out divine fate whether they want to or not (4).

Sumatrans believe that were-tiger homes are made of roofs thatched with human hair, walls made of human skin, and beams of human bones.

Joane le Roux, New Straits Times

Weretigers have a complicated place in the folklore of Asia, both within and between cultures. Should you want to know how to recognize them, just to be safe, there are a few ways. One of the most common signs is that weretigers lack the groove on the upper lip (5, 9). A person caught vomiting chicken feathers is considered a likely suspect for a weretiger (12). I would suggest that that should make them suspect for something regardless. The tracks of the weretiger are distinctive because there are five toes on each paw, whereas normal tigers, like all cats, leave prints with five toes on the front paws and four on the back (10, 11). If you see large cat prints with any number of toes, perhaps the best practice is to depart with haste rather than start counting.

Works Cited

  1. Brighenti, F. (2017). Traditional beliefs about weretigers among the Garos of Meghalaya. eTropic, 16(1), 96-111. PDF
  2. Brighenti, F. (2011). Kradi mliva: The phenomenon of tiger-transformation in the traditional lore of the Kondh tribals of Orissa. Lokaratna, 4, 11-25. PDF
  3. Casal, U.A. (1959). The goblin fox and badger and other witch animals of Japan. Folklore Studies, 18, 1-93. doi: 10.2307/1177429.
  4. Hammond, C.E. (1992). Sacred metamorphosis: The weretiger and the shaman. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 46(2/3), 235-255. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23658449
  5. Wessing, R. (1995). The last tiger in East Java: Symbolic continuity in ecological change. Asian Folklore Studies, 54(2), 191-218. doi: 10.2307/1178941
  6. Wessing, R. (1994). “Bangatowa,” “Patogu” and “Gaddhungan”: Perceptions of the tiger among the Madurese. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 25(2), 368-380. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20071663
  7. Biria, S.G.D. (1947). The Muria and their Ghotul. Oxford University Press.
  8. Worra, B.T. (2012, December 20). Pondering weretigers of Laos. On the Other Side of the Eye. http://thaoworra.blogspot.com/2012/12/pondering-weretigers-of-laos.html
  9. bin Ahmad, Z.A. (1922). The tiger-breed families. Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 85, 36-39. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41561390
  10. Lyngdoh, M. (2016). Tiger transformation among the Khasis of northeastern India: Belief worlds and shifting realities. Anthropos, 111(2), 649-658. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44791292
  11. Kharmawphlang, D. (2000). In search of tigermen: The were-tiger tradition of the Khasis. India International Centre Quaterly, 27(4), 160-176. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23005708
  12. le Roux, J. (2014, November 1). In pursuit of a were-tiger. New Strait Times. https://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/09/pursuit-were-tiger

Published October 26th, 2020